


Camellia

by DreamOfStories



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Anyone would be, Eventual Happy Ending, Evil Ring, From the Begining, Gen, Glimpses of Might Have Beens, Long and Slow Recovery, No Romance, No Sex, Semi-SI, She's a little screwed up, Short Chapters, Through the Hobbit and LotR anyway, Unreliable Narrator, Well it would be long if the chapters weren't tiny, long fic, to the bitter end
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-15
Updated: 2017-03-26
Packaged: 2018-10-05 21:00:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 2,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10316870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamOfStories/pseuds/DreamOfStories
Summary: Camellia just wants to not screw everything up.





	1. Birth

**Author's Note:**

> I was trying a new writing style and well... it came out a 15,000 word one shot. That's a bit ridiculous, but I couldn't figure out where to split it. So have many small chapters while I post as I edit. Sorry.

She's born in the Shire as the younger sister of Bilbo Baggins.

Not by much.

Hobbits may have children quickly but even by hobbit standards there had been very little time between their births. It had led to a lot of teasing from their Mother's various tea time visitors. Bilbo and Bungo got to escape those traumatising experiences... but she couldn't begrudge them that. Formal tea time was for ladies and the bachelors after their favour. It wasn't for rambunctious boys or sensible married hobbits.

 (More's the pity, Mother would whisper to her as the boys escaped off to a picnic).

The rest of the peaceful sunny days though... She's determined to prepare her brother as best she can for the journey that awaits him. She drags a not-so-reluctant Bilbo on trips into the woods where they (well, him) learn with the Bounders how to scavenge, how to move quietly, how to fight. For herself, she learns as much as she can about herbs and medicine and anything that could be useful - anything that she could later stuff into her brother's head with endless revision sessions.

She swore, every time they fell asleep under starry skies on top of their hill, she _would_ help her brother prepare as best she can. She _would_ ensure there was a home waiting for him when he came back. She would _not_ let what _should_ have happened, happen for real. Bilbo would get the hero's welcome he deserved.

... Then the fell winter comes, her parents die, and... Bilbo dies too.

Bilbo is needed. He shouldn't have died, only he did and now what does she do...?

Trapped in their smial; her brother, her mother, her father lying in the cold cellar; she shudders in her blankets.

All her plans, her hopes, her future ... Against the future of middle earth.

She doesn't have her brother's will power, nor her maybe future cousin / nephew's. But she knows. She knows what it is, what it will do - knows the future and the golden age of men that may come.

She doesn't have to carry it to Mordor. She just has to keep it safe until it's time for Frodo to take it. If she doesn't use it, if she keeps it tucked away... Surely it will be fine?

 (She doesn't think about Bilbo's other achievements, about the dragon. Her mind shies away whenever she does.)

-/-


	2. Master Baggins

When Bilbo Baggins emerges from the Bag End at the end of the winter, he's different. That's to be expected of course. The Bounders walking around opening up sealed doors smell the sickness and fever, although they note young Bilbo is no longer affected by such things. His family wasn't so lucky.

Later, hobbits accept his trembling silence as they knock on the door with grim faces. He stands aside, eyes shadowed under shaggy hair, and watches as they carry the too-thin, too-light, blanket-wrapped bundles to the wagon. A scribe notes their names and the wagon rolls on.

His bearing is different too, his tenants whisper among themselves. It's stiff and lacks the ease he once wore like his father before him. He has little time for the young lasses that seek his attention - even less than before - and turns to walking and travelling as he may. There's rumours that if he wasn't Master of Bag End with tenants depending on him and all, he'd have joined the Bounders, but such things aren't the sort of thing a Baggins would get involved in surely.

But... there's his dear sister, and his parents, all of them lost and the poor lad sharing the smial with them for who knows how long in the dark?

It's no wonder he's a little different, a little... Peculiar.

Still, he's well off and has a lovely home, and he's always kind if nothing else. He would make a good husband for some lucky hobbit lass. The Baggins name isn't something to scoff at and for all his Peculiarities he is a well-mannered gentle-hobbit.

-/-


	3. Chapter 3

Camellia does her best. She isn't perfect - she knows she isn't perfect - but she can't quit, she can't give up. Bilbo Baggins died because there was an extra person in that smial, and not enough food for more than one of them. Bilbo Baggins died for her, and she cannot forget that - cannot let herself forget that. So she pretends and deceives and with every hobbit that calls her Bilbo the deception settles a little more.

~~It's not the first time she's taken on a name that isn't truly her own.~~

So she does her best to be the hobbit her parents would have been proud of, that her brother would look on from Yavvanna's gardens and not hate her for. She sees to her tenants' needs as best she can, and the trade and the duties of a Holder of Land, and is as proper as she can bring herself to be while balancing her archery, her knife work and the other skills she will need... Later. Always later.

And she waits.

Each morning that she is in Hobbiton, she sits on the bench in front of Bag End's door and waits for a grey pointy hat to work its way up the drive.

He doesn't come.

Eventually she decides that adjusting her body to travel is a better use of her time. She visits Bree, the South Farthings, her Took relatives. She adapts to a steady pace, starting a fire in different weathers and recognising bird calls, tracks and the Rangers who slip through thinking themselves unnoticed.

She still sits on that bench when she's home though.

She still waits.

~/~


	4. Good Morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something finally happens.

The wizard gives her a piercing look when he arrives, and she wonders if those half-formed wonderings about wizards being able to see a person's fea are true. If they are, will he recognise her for Camelia? Will he know she isn't who she is pretending to be?

Then he huffs and frowns at her. She frowns back around the pipe in her mouth, then takes it from her mouth. It's light in her grip, carved handle resting on her palm.

"Ah, good morning?"

"Do you mean..."

She raises an eyebrow as he goes through a long list of possible meanings. It's not amusing, not like in the book. It's... She isn't sure what it is but she doesn't like it. Still... "The first I should think, though perhaps with elements of the others."

He hums, brings up the talk of adventure, and she hesitates. This is her purpose, this is what everything has been for, but... But...

Oh how did her brother do it, in that other life?

And before she knows it, she is telling him no, that she has duties and responsibilities and that she should stay here. The weight of the Gamgees, the Noakes, the Rumbles and countless others... They count on her. They look to her. How can she leave them?

Gandalf huffs at her, and ignores her words (and she is grateful - pathetic part of her whispers - that she will be all but forced out the door after this).

When he is gone, she brushes her fingers against the mark on the door. It tingles under her fingers and she frowns. What...

Then it kicks in, what this means, what it really means in the here and now, and her eyes widen. 13 dwarves are going to turn up at her door - 13 dwarves that haven't come from the best of circumstances.

(Even if she isn't sure she wants to go with them, she is a hobbit and has her pride. She won't turn hungry faces from her door.)

Gandalf had promised them plenty of food. She wouldn't make a liar out of him even if he'd never told her such a thing.

Then other worries kick in.

Foolish of her... But how was she to keep her deception up on the road? The herbs? The bindings?

...Perhaps they will understand, but understand what? She is not a maiden that wished she could have been born male, nor a woman in difficult circumstances who could be pressured into an unpleasant marriage... Hobbits weren't like that and she didn't want to give the impression they were. No. She would have to think on this. Maybe a careful enquiry on the matter later...? They were supposed to be good people, well, dwarves. Honourable individuals. It might be ok...

But just in case...

She groans to herself and turns to her work. Food can wait, her larder is well stocked if not as well stocked as she would like, her clothes and her pack on the other hand...

Those need work.

-/-


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dwarves arrive

The dwarves turn up as expected and she has a new sense of pride in her brother. She can't quite stop the instinctive flinch as Dwalin barges past her; he is intimidating - heavily so. ~~The floor shakes under his stomps.~~

She has a role to play, and demands to know why he is here, why he came barging into her house like this. She squashes firmly the part of her that says she wouldn't be as brave if she didn't already know the distorted version of them in her memories. She tries not to think about how his hands are larger than her face, how his legs are mini-tree trunks and his axe gleams in the fire light. ~~How easily he could break her for her deception.~~

The dwarves seem to appreciate her spine. Or at least, she manages to get them to acknowledge that she had no idea they were coming. She isn't sure if that's because it's her, or if it's them... But it goes slightly differently from how memory says it should.

Balin talks to her briefly about what they are here for - a mission to help their people, to try and give them a home again. Dwalin warns the others at the door, and later arrivals are quieter? They don't give off the same air of danger and even Dwalin seems... less... less everything now. He's all but shrunk in the time it takes her to pull out the spare chairs that happened to be a room away.

She agrees to let them meet her, to feed them, and to let them stay the night if they wish. She doesn't promise more.

Not yet.

-/-


	6. Thoriny Issue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thorin Arrives

When Thorin arrives, Dwalin is a bit slow getting to him. He is... Not quite as intimidating as expected but there is a presence to him that wasn't conveyed in her hazy memories of book or film. It keeps her silent as he insults her, though she can tell that her disapproval is growing on her face.

When he is done calling her a grocer, she informs him curtly that he may use her home for his meeting but that she has agreed to no more than that. Then she retreats to the kitchen and leaves Balin to explain things to his King.

She listens from the shadows, hidden from the gaze of the dwarves by the curves and stiff walls of her parents' home. Nori loiters at the doorway, sharp eyes watching for her return. He doesn't see her and she listens to the increasingly angry discussion with Gandalf. She can't help the slow curl of satisfaction inside at Gandalf's discomfort. Try to trap her brother would he?

Then Gandalf calls her out.

Her face is blank as he outlines what exactly they are asking of her. Thorin interjects with clarifications and bitter complaints. He doesn't want her there. He wouldn't entertain it at all, except for Balin's quiet reminder there is _no time_ to find anyone else. Dwalin glares at her suspiciously too, and Nori oddly enough. His eyes are sharp beneath his sardonic smirk.

And Bofur and his furnace with wings...

It all serves to increase her nerves until she can't quite hard them... She doesn't faint though. She just... gets a little wobbly and needs to sit down. On a conveniently placed chair. She smiles up at Dori and with trembling hands takes the contract Balin holds out to her.

She lets it open, and sees it fall to the floor. A phrase jumps out:

_'Unequal relative stature of Burglar and any discovered guardian, occupier or squatter shall not constitute or be considered as grounds for refusal nor excuse'_

Suddenly the memory of Smaug and his sheer size is very very vivid in her mind - as well as what exactly the dwarves plan on forcing her to do.

She walks away, protesting that she needs to think.

None of them try to stop her.

-/-


	7. Signed and Sealed

Later, after the song, after the sheer emotion in it, she gathers her courage and approaches Balin. There are letters she will have to deliver (she does want a home when she gets back, with all her things in) and changes that will need to be made. Balin hums and haws but agrees to her demands easily enough. She wonders if she should have pushed for more flexibility, more fairness but... it's done. She signs the contract then and there.

Balin tucks it away with a smile and a reminder to be awake early. She nods and leaves, falling onto her bed in her clothes. There will be little time enough the next morning to ensure everything sits just right. A friendly wake up call from one of her guests would not help her nerves… and the fallout would probably be _difficult_.

-/-


	8. Chapter 8

Thorin is grumpy about dropping the letters off, but he pauses long enough for her to pay one of the many runners loitering around the post office for the urgent post. There are three letters there. One for the Thain, one for her cousin, and one for the (as much as there can be one) Head of the Took family. That they are all going to the same person is of no consequence. They are all needed, for different reasons.

-/-


End file.
